Cumprimento de ordens, obediência hierárquica e disciplina militar versus perpetração (in)voluntária de crimes

Following orders, hierarchical obedience and military discipline are essential values for the survival of the armed forces. Without them, it is not possible to conceive the armed forces as an essential pillar of a democratic state of law and a guarantor of national independence. As issuing orders as well as receiving and following them are inextricably linked to military discipline, and as such injunctions entail the workings of a particular obedience regime within the specific kind of organized power framework which is the Armed Forces, only by analysing the importance of such orders within this microcosm – with its strict hierarchical structure – will it be possible to understand which criminal judicial qualification to ascribe to the individual at the rear by reference to the role of the front line individual (i.e. the one who issues an order vs the one who executes it). That is, of course, when we are faced with the practice of unlawful acts, keeping in mind the organizational framework and its influence over the will of the executor. One thing we take as read, if the orders can be described as unlawful, the boundary line of the duty of obedience, which cannot be overstepped, both because of a legal as well as a constitutional imperative, will have been crossed. And the military have sworn an oath of obedience to the fundamental law. The topic of hierarchical obedience cannot be separated from the analysis of current legislation which pertains to the topic within military institutions. With that in mind, it appeared relevant to address the major norms which regulate the matter within the Portuguese military legal system, and, whenever necessary and required by the reality under analysis, to relate that to civilian law or legal doctrine.

Aplicação do princípio da igualdade na legislação experimental em Portugal

The experimental legislation follows the development of legislative evaluation practices. Being a legislative technique used not only with the aim of gathering political and social consensus, but also, especially in controversial matters, to provide data and information that will serve as basis for a clarified and justified legislative decision. The characteristic features of the experimental laws are its limited application in time and/or in territory and the prediction, in the law itself, of an evaluation after the experimental period. The application of an experimental law just in a specific geographic area raises constitutional issues because of the implications of the principle of equality. Indeed, the principle of equality, despite admitting some treatment differences between people, commands that these differences have to be legitimate, reasonable and proportional, namely, not arbitrary. Besides the constitutionality problem for the violation of the principle of equality, the experimental laws may also consist of laws restricting fundamental rights and be the cause of the liability of the State, within its legislative function.